


Onward, To Adventure

by whatthefoucault



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, F/F, Sexual Content, Twelve gets mentioned, implied whouffaldi (sort of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 15:39:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6664495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatthefoucault/pseuds/whatthefoucault
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something was beeping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Onward, To Adventure

**Author's Note:**

> An anonymous person on tumblr requested that I write "Clara/Ashildr, sex on a countertop/tabletop/sink because we couldn’t wait to get somewhere with cushions," and I'm going to pretend this was exactly what they had in mind.
> 
> Written while listening to [this song by Daughter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-fD3PIRSO8), which probably had an influence.

Something was beeping.

It was not a beep Clara had heard before, and if she was thinking better, she might be concerned that she had bumped her hand against a console button that under NO CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER should have been pushed, but she had more important things to think about.  
Clara had not anticipated that of all the things to be on the run from - time, Time Lords, the ever-present spectre of Death hovering just near enough that its presence was never quite forgotten - her most relentless pursuer was Boredom. She ran to the farthest-flung ends of the universe, to the spectacular, the thrilling, the beautiful; sometimes, however, even thrills became somehow too much of the same, an endless parade of newness and things to do.

Me's eternally fresh face betrayed a soul that had lived well beyond numbers Clara could count, speaking silently of wonder, wisdom, and a kind of existential apathy. It was the last one that scared Clara sometimes. Clara saw what she could become, if she went on too long.

She had already stopped keeping track of days.

Oh, but they had fun: such fun indeed, seeing this planet and that, averting one catastrophe after another. It was never a good idea to stay in one place for long, so they ran. It was like living one bank holiday weekend after another: eventually, you start to miss going to work.

Sometimes, there were other ways not to be bored, or to blur thoughts and feelings that needed to be blurred. Sometimes, they found themselves fumbling together in soft beds or darkened corridors, and sometimes - but not often - never quite making it beyond the TARDIS console. An absent presence seemed to tug at her mind as she felt the woman trembling against her tongue, coming with a quiet gasp. Whatever was beeping was still struggling to make its shrill protest known as Clara folded her companion into her arms, who steadied her breathing slowly as she came down.

(It had been different when Clara was companion to another. She thought about him often. He could not think of her, so she remembered for two. She wished she had said the things that needed saying so much sooner. Maybe things would have been different, maybe better, maybe more.)

"What the hell is that noise?" asked Me, at long last.

"Oh yeah, that," replied Clara, helping her down from the console with a dainty hop. "That could be an emergency. Where's the bloody manual got to?"

"You mean the one we've been using to reach the top shelf in the kitchen?"

"I think it might be too late to get there and back," she said, as the urgency of the beeping seemed to be increasing, and the hum of the engines was changing pitch, and they seemed to be tipping just slightly sideways. Maybe this was it, Clara thought, maybe this was where time, and Time Lords, and that damn bird caught up to her. Maybe it had been long enough, maybe it was time to stop. She closed her eyes, took a breath, and was ready.

There was a stumble, the lights went out just for a moment, and all was once more as it should be. Whatever it was had righted itself. Me adjusted her skirt, and set the coordinates for somewhere they had probably not been. Okay, thought Clara. Onward, to adventure.


End file.
